SPRING seems to be getting earlier and earlier each year and even in January I was hearing song thrushes in full tune in woodlands above Tillicoultry.

It is such a beautiful song, which Thomas Hardy described as that ‘ecstatic sound’ and the ‘evensong of joy unlimited’.

It is estimated that the song thrush has a repertoire of over 100 different phrases, with a real tendency to repeat some. This was remarked upon by Robert Browning in his poem Home Thoughts from Abroad. “That's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over/Lest you should think he never could recapture/The first fine careless rapture!”

Robins too are starting to sing, albeit in hesitant fashion, but it will be another week or two before blackbirds start to get into the swing of things as well. Robins are unusual in that they will often sing at night, especially those living in towns where street lights spur them into their nocturnal melodies.

Snowdrops are also now in full bloom and can be found in woodlands and waysides throughout the country. But despite the fragile beauty of the petals, the snowdrop is an incredibly tough little plant able to withstand the hardest of frosts and being buried in the snow for days on end. Indeed, William Wordsworth noted the battering that snowdrops so frequently endure from winter storms, “…smitten by the wing of many a furious whirlblast sweeping by”.

I have also been noticing the emerging shoots of wild garlic or ramsons when walking along the banks of the River Devon – but it will be several weeks yet before their striking white flowers burst into bloom.